Mallorca Bulletin

A THIRD OF HOMES IN THE BALEARICS ARE EMPTY

Palma.— In the midst of a housing emergency in the Balearics, with real estate portals where there are barely twenty flats for rent for less than 1,000 euros in Palma and w ith the highest prices in Spain, there is the paradox that one out of every three homes built on the islands is either empty or is a second home and is only used for a few days a year. The data of the Census of Dwellings published by the National Institute of Statistics, from the year 2021, are the e v i d e nce o f t h i s co n t r a d i c t i o n in which there are l a r ge s e c t i o n s o f Balearic society living on the breadline while there are 210,587 homes that are empty or are only used as second homes. The latest Official Housing Census shows that in the Balearics there are 652,123 dwellings. Of these, 441,536 are primary residences and are therefore fully used. The Census adds that another 105,434 are empty and there are another 105,153 that are destined for sporadic housing, with a very limited use. The conclusion is that one out of every three buildings on the islands has hardly any use. While the percentage of main homes on the islands is decreasing, the number of inhabitants continues to increase, which is an a d d e d p r o b l e m f o r t he r e a l e s t at e situation in the Balearics. According to population data from the National Institute of Statistics, the population of the Islands increased in the decade between 2011 and 2021, the years in which the censuses were taken, by a total of 91,759 people but the main homes only increased by just over 11,000. The result is that more and more people are forced to share housing or live with their parents because of the impossibility of finding a flat or house at an affordable price. And when it comes to second homes, those owned by Britons or ‘third party nationals’ who are not residents, they can only be used for a maximum of 90 days at a time as a result of Brexit and EU rules which do not help the situation either. Seguir leyendo